Training Log Archive: Lexc

Track woo! :P feeling pretty exhausted after the weekend.....!!!! :P

Session: 600m, 2x300m, 600m, 2x300m, 600m, 2x300m

Times: 1:42, 45,47, 1:42, 46, 48, 1:42, 47, 45

Felt ok all things considered :P Times a little slower than what I woulda liked tho :P

Warm up and down... :P nice weather :D

JK - DAY 4 - RELAY - 48minus (started at the same time as a host of other relays that all had either the same or incredibly similar gaffles as mine :P)

I was initially down to run 3rd leg with James Ackland and Freddie which would have been a pretty good competitive relay team... However... The previous day had taken a toll on my teammates - two orienteering fatalities (ok well not quite) but basically they were out for today :(

So by myself I was promoted to first leg ;) (my favourite! :D) smashed it out at the start... Orienteering seems so much easier under no pressure! :P (although the area was so nice... There was like proper features... And paths...!! :D)

Beasted it leading some M18's and some others all the way to #4 :)... Here I accidentally went one re-entrant too far meaning I lost 20s... Unfortunately that meant quite a few people got about 15s on me and I was left to slog it out to catch back up with them :P

Caught up with the leader - a French M18 where we raced the controls leading up to the spectator - I kicked and nailed the two spectator controls gaining a bit of time on him... Only to not see where the red lime went to and to head off towards the final control for some reason!? Lost 30s and then suddenly realised nobody on my course was going in my direction -.-

Realised and bombed off as fast as I could to catch up with the French guy and Ali Thornton (who had gained 10s on the French guy) l. Ali had a different gaffle from me and the other guy so led us into almost every control... Except it was the wrong one :S annoyingly had to quickly relocate with pressure building as I could here the finish cheers!!! :P

Relocated - nailed the rest - caught up with the French guy and had a really fun Sprint finish with him where I absolutely annihilated him ;) wasn't quite enough to catch Ali though... He was 3s ahead of me!! So close!! :P (annoyingly he did the exact same thing to me last year -.-)

Overall the JK weekend was great fun - I really enjoyed it and had good fun getting hopelessly lost a couple of times on the seriously hard areas but in the end that's my best JK result ever and I didn't massively blow a day (as I have been renowned for doing on big races) so overall I'm pretty pleased :)

Warm up and down :D :)

UK - DAY 3 - LONG - 6th (4th Brit) - 3rd overall (2nd Brit)

As I walked to the start the thunder began to roar overhead... The wind picked up... The rain began tipping it down and the mist rolled in -.- great - just my luck! :P

Started pretty well nailing the first few - #3 I was a little to the right but after following the massive depressions I hit it - 30s lost tops :) Quite slow to #5 losing another 30s but it was properly misty and I didn't trust my bearing that much after yesterday :/ cautious but still ok in the end, it turned out that my bearing was spot on in the end but I was stood still for a while checking :)

#6 was quite bad and I lost 35s because I was dragged to the side due to the hill shape but in the end it was ok as I attacked of a cave :) #7 was abysmal -.- I thought a bearing would be enough but the mist was down and I couldn't see much :/ 3mins lost on a relatively simple control due to me Bing stupid - I used the compass - I even paced it out but then when it wasn't where I expected I panicked ad it all went wrong :/ (madly searching depression after depression.......)

Responded well with a fastest split but then got cocky I think :( didn't have much of a plan and my compass was telling me to go lower... I thought it was too low however and stupidly plowed on past my AP - the place were I should've slowed down - meaning nothing (surprisingly!?) made sense -.- panicked for a bit an then eventually found it (well, after losing 3mins) :( was annoyed after this and had a good string of splits right the way to the end (except for #15 where I was tired an just missed it along the path! -.- lost 30s and therefore to Matt F and Ross M on that day... Really annoying!!!)

When I got in I didn't really know what to expect... I knew I had had two pretty bad runs but I also knew most people would be making masses of mistakes too! I still wasn't expecting 3rd at the JK after that but I'm certainly not going to complain! I suppose I was consistently in the mix each day which gave me a chance! :) seriously annoyed to be just under 10minutes down on Aidan and Kasper because I know I can do better than last weekend...

I just hope I have done enough for the selections as that was one of my main aims for the year! :/ a seriously nervous wait in store for me I think! :(:(:(

Warm up and down :P

JK - DAY 2 - LONG - 5th (3rd Brit)

After yesterday to try cope with the pressure I just tried as hard as I could to forget about today.... Seemed to work to an extent :)

That said - I blew #1 straight off -.- still a bit jumpy and just ran with no clear plan, I shot off past it, realised and then headed back... - 24s lost instantly though :/ I responded well with a fastest split next though :)

Completely blew #3.... -.- :'( lost 2 minutes from running around in circles, I ran in the right direction with a good plan but then got distracted when I saw Finlay Todd (started 4mins ahead of me) completely lost circling... This made me lose concentration and therefore I panicked after mot finding it first time and activated headless chicken mode! :// not intentionally but I wanted to find it quickly and was certain it was somewhere close by.... - It wasn't that close by.... -.- :P

Good plan to #4 but I missed it because I was dragged off down the hill for some reason - should have stopped and slowed down at my attackpoint but stupidly didn't and lost a minute :( got a few ok controls in after this but then hit the two long legs!

My plans were both very good for tthese but it was a similar story with both - I would get very close to the control (within 70m?) but then not slow down and not go to and then attack from my attack point :( this resulted in me losing 2:30mins on #9 (I'm still certain I would have been a lot quicker had someone not been standing infront of the kite shielding me from it but that's orienteering I suppose :P) starting to panicked after that didn't help either...

#10 I lost a similar amount if time - my bearing was quite a while off which annoyingly explained why nothing was making sense........... Dragged off down the hill before realising and heading over to the right bit... Still wasn't entirely sure where the control was and had to attack it several times :(:(

Final mistake was a small 30s one on the final side of the hill - everyone was running almost everywhere looking lost but I realised where I was and nailed it in the end :) the rest of the course was pretty simple... No mistakes :) pretty bad run but luckily most people made mistakes too - considering I didn't completely trash the run up I'm not too displeased by that :) only 3 mins down on Aidan who had a far better run than me so not too bad and also I'm still in contention for selections and podium positions! :D not bad

Frustrating that after blowing close to 9 minutes Samual Galloway goes and beats me by 10s but I'll make sure I get him tomorrow ;) - also me and Finlay ran pretty different routes to most controls and were it not a race would have made quite an interesting RC exercise :P

Warm up and down :P :)

Event: JK 2014
 

JK - 2014 - day 1 - Sprint - 7th (4th Brit)

Coming into this race I was feeling pretty good fitness wise and all that... First proper selection race though and I felt as if I was under immense amounts of pressure (all self applied) to perform to my best and have some really good races! Way to much pressure though and just before and during the start of the sprint my legs were literally jelly.... It was horrendous and almost as bad - if not worse than when I have done some pretty massive cross-country races!!! :( :/

All that said I actually started not all that badly - just focussing on hitting the controls spot on and keeping myself sensible and up there... Lost around 15s due to not ploughing through the hedges as some other guys did...

All really well and just 4s behind the eventual winner (Kasper Fosser) right up till #11 where I went the wrong way around a building and found another control - not mine - when I was expecting it to be... Lost a good 10s just working out what exactly I had done wrong and where the control was gonna be, that wasn't too bad as I was still fourth...

A good run of controls and good flow meant I was able to climb back up to 3rd in the splits (1st and 2nd were still 10s ahead) before losing another 10s at #15! Just a pretty poor route choice meant that I blew the leg by quite a lot...

The slip ups earlier were nothing in comparison to what happened next - it was the long leg back out into the park and the cured paths and sudden change in navigation style threw me and suddenly I panicked - I ran straight past the control... Like twice while panicking and aimlessly running to try find the control! Eventually (40s later.... -.-) I stopped, orientated my map and all of a sudden everything made sense and the control was not even 15m from where I was standing...! :'( idiot...

The rest was pretty good - other than not running up a bank (losing 5s going around) it was fine and I finished quickly pretty frustrated with my final mistake fresh in my mind.... I knew it wasn't good enough and I knew that people were just going to keep coming in ahead of me...

Ready should have done better but as of then I hadn't actually blown anything major yet - something I can be known to do quite often so it's not all bad I suppose! (-annoying Matt Felly snuck in 5s ahead of me in the end -.- ;))

C • That 5 seconds on the bank... 3

Warm up and down - nice and sunny :)

I did the training I missed out on yesterday after the Sprint. It all looks quite good fun! :D

Forced rest day today :(:( really waited to get out on the training area today but looks that isn't possible... Too late and I'm still traveling :'( hopefully tomorrow :) my back is really quite sore today :/

Rest day - pre JK :).... 8 hour slog down to Wales in the car to look forwards to tomorrow! (then it's the practice event and everything becomes very real all of a sudden...!)

#buzzin'